The Vintons are reconnecting in retirement

By Pam MellskogLongmont Times-Call

Posted:
02/08/2013 09:49:57 PM MST

Updated:
02/08/2013 09:51:15 PM MST

Greg and Nancy Vinton volunteer at The Willie Center, a 6,000-acre ranch owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and named after the Willie Handcart Company, which lost 13 percent (77 members) en route to Utah during a snowstorm in November 1856.
(
Matthew Jonas
)

LONGMONT -- After nearly 40 years of marriage, the Vintons left the their 4,200-square foot Longmont home and the lifestyle that kept them apart about 50 percent of the time to move into a 29-foot long trailer in rural Wyoming.

Greg, 62, looped the globe many times over as a pilot with United Airlines, which explains his frequent absences.

During his trips, Nancy, 58, held down the home front -- one extra busy with their four children -- while sewing antique reproduction garments, wedding gowns and prom dresses.

But when they retired in 2011, both felt a tug to volunteer at a spot they visited the year before -- The Willie Center, a 6,000-acre ranch owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and named after the Willie Handcart Company, which lost 13 percent (77 members) en route to Utah during a snowstorm in November 1856.

"Nancy's ancestors came through there on the Oregon Trail five or six years after the incident," Greg said. "So, for us it is a place to find inner strength, to remember that when you come to the end of your resources you find the faith that you have."

The LDS church bought the ranch near Lander because it sits along the Oregon Trail at the so-called Sixth Crossing of the Sweetwater -- the place where pioneers pulling and pushing handcarts crossed the meandering Sweetwater River for the sixth time out of the nine total crossings while traveling west.

Guiding visitors along the trail, which cuts through Bureau of Land Management property, helped them see each other and history with fresh eyes.

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"We had to explain to the kids visiting that for a lot of these people, their feet were wrapped in rags because their shoes wore out," Greg said.

Hiking the 30-mile, roundtrip trail in two days and recalling other difficulties the pioneers faced -- they rationed food to just 4 ounces of flour a day per person at one point -- puts modern hardships into perspective, the Vintons said.

For instance, no cell phone towers or telephone poles disturb the landscape, which took some getting used to, Nancy said.

"Once, we were going along the trail, and there was that feeling of isolation. I thought, 'Breathe deep. Don't panic.' And it was because there was no support. We're used to that feeling of instant help," she said.

Yet, support is exactly what they felt upon meeting in 1972 at her home church in Spokane, Wash., after he visited while working a construction job in the area.

Greg's parents both died within a year of each other at age 42 -- Dad from alcohol-related causes and Mom from cancer -- when he was a teenager growing up in Fair Oaks, Calif.

As the third of five kids, he remembers the pain of being farmed out to relatives and running away to strike out on his own instead.

When he met Nancy, he sensed what he needed in a wife -- someone with homemaking gifts and family values, he said.

They wed on June 13, 1973.

Both said that four decades later, living at the ranch for 18 months in something of a cocoon over the winter, when temperatures drop to minus 30 degrees and the wind often threw pebbles at 70 mph, helped them reconnect in retirement.

"We are just enjoying each others' company," Greg said. "We have two cars parked in the garage. But we always go together in one."

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